Sgt. Angle Reporting for Duty!

Today we’re going to double down and talk a bit about a particular type camera trickery that was excelled by the savvy David Fincher in this weekend’s box office topper The Social Network. What I’d like to point out here are filmmakers who go on to claim that they do not think of trying to master a certain visual effect, but they start with what works best for the storytelling — how a scene or character is motivated, what’s the driving force of the scene and arc of the film itself, rather than trying to wow an audience.

(**Beware!! Ahead there be spoilers!!**)

I’m talking, of course, about the special effects wizardry that enables two Lindsay Lohans in The Parent Trap, or two Nicolas Cage’s in Adaptation, the Winklevoss brothers in The Social Network, and two Sam Rockwells in Moon. Below are a few processes to make this happen, which will also show you how technology has been able to advance techniques and add more freedom in storytelling.

First is the Matte Process, or Matting. This was used in films from the silent era through the 70s (and still today, though much less so thanks to digital compositing). Matting at its’ most basic level involves filming a scene from a static camera position twice and combining both takes onto another, separate, undeveloped roll of film while blocking (matting) out the other half of the frame shot.

Hayley Mills (the original girl in The Parent Trap) would act out a scene standing at camera left, pretending she was talking to her twin sister. Then, she would act out the very same scene at camera right, interacting with the help of a recording of her first round of dialogue. Then, each role would be projected onto a new role of film, which was rewound between projections, with half of the frame covered up. The new role would become the master matted role. This is an oversimplification, obviously, but a helpful breakdown of an early creative process.

Of course, if you moved the camera or tried a tracking shot, your level of success with creating a flawless shot of the same actor twice would rarely be successful, so most often you would be stuck with a static shot.

In 2001, Spike Jonze directed Nicolas Cage in an Oscar nominated performance playing twin brothers Charlie and Donald Kaufman in Adaptation. It was meta. Using the skills of Gray Marshall, the director was able to avoid green screen technology for 80% of the “twins” shots in the film, thanks to the dedication of a talented actor and the creation of motion control cameras and rotoscoping.

Motion Control allows a camera movement to be recorded and run again and again, precisely and exactly the same over and over again. This leaves no room for user error if a particular movement needs the exact same timing each take, and especially if you’re using trick photography. Rotoscoping, or tracing over live action footage, was used to cover up any errors or overlapping of footage. The result is a seamless world in which Nicolas Cage has doubled, and Big Daddy is even more of a presence than he probably needs to be.

Having Charlie and Donald interact verbally is key to the story being told, highlighting the differences of each character which is also visualized in what they wear, how they stand, etc.

Advancing the techniques of split-screen and CG work in order to double the fun of your favorite actor, Sam Rockwell, Moon director certainly takes the cake for taking initiative on the set and bringing two Rockwell’s to life using split screen and body doubles. Perhaps most exciting are the scenes involving a game of ping pong and one where Sam 2 zips the pants of Sam 1, from a moving shot profiling both Sams. It’s really quite amazing to watch, and Rockwell was up to the challenge of memorizing not only dialogue but the camera’s movements and his own movements from previous takes and days in order to match shots.

This dedication shows up on screen, you can feel the presence of the work involved, but you can also see why the film needed to be made this way. As an audience, we really needed the point hammered home that there was more than one Sam in existence, and the shock that two Sams have become, essentially, self-aware is a key point in the story.

In The Social Network, Army Hammer plays both the Winklevoss brothers, Tyler and Cameron, however, as you’ll note in the credits, Josh Pence is credited as one of the brothers. That’s because, much like Fincher’s process of overlapping Brad Pitt’s face on an old man and young baby in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Hammer’s face and voice were overlapped onto Pence’s performance after the fact.

This allowed for more seamless interaction and actual presence in scenes featuring the brothers, and shots that required the back of the head to be shown only were easier with the stand-in (as they would’ve been even 50 years ago). But moving cameras, shifting angles, etc., required the necessity to reveal both brothers simultaneously. As one of the Winklevie says during the film, “I’m 6’5″ 220 and there are two of me.” There’s no better way to show that than actually show it, and it’s worth the technological difficulties as long as you can hire the proper actor for the role.

You are dismissed!

Sgt. Angle

Howdy, kids! Welcome back to the Book Report.

Before we go anywhere, you need to go read the final installment in the Mythoi: Birth series: Touch. I’ll be waiting patiently until you get back.

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Took you long enough.
Today I want to talk about an author who has been called a nihilist, a satirist of the highest order, a voice for an angry generation, a modern beatnik, and a shock-value gross-out author. Two of his novels have made the transition to film, doing poorly at the box office but establishing a large cult following once the films come out on dvd. In fact, very often when I mention this author by name I get a blank stare until I add in the fact that he was “the guy that wrote Fight Club.” And then I’ll occasionally get the response, “Wait, Fight Club was a book too?”

*Facepalm*

The Guy That Wrote Fight Club

Chuck Palahniuk grew up in the Pacific Northwest, and went to college at University of Oregon for a degree in journalism. After working a variety of jobs (which eventually inspired characters or events in later novels), Palahniuk began writing in the mid 1990s. His first novel, Invisible Monsters, was rejected by publishers for its disturbing content. In retaliation, he wrote a novel he hoped would disturb publishers even more than the first one, called Fight Club. To his surprise, it was picked up and published in 1996.
Despite its relatively short shelf life, the book was noticed by a few people in Hollywood, though producers were reluctant to back the film. David Fincher, however, had been trying to get the rights to direct the film version since the book first hit shelves. He was able to broker a deal with 20th Century Fox, and the film hit movie screens in 1999.

Beyond the Mayhem
The same year that Fight Club hit movie screens, Palahniuk was finally able to get Invisible Monsters published. He released his third novel, Survivor, that year as well. The novels follow Palahniuk’s convention of writing in the first person, as well as utilizing non-linear storytelling. In fact, Survivor’s chapters and page numbers run backward, so the last chapter and last page of the book are both 1, effectively making the narrative a countdown. Both novels have film versions in production.
That year, tragedy also struck Palahniuk’s life. His father was brutally murdered by the ex-boyfriend of a girl he was dating. The trial and subsequent death sentence inspired his 2002 novel Lullaby. During the trial, Palahniuk was asked to be part of the decision as to whether or not give the murderer the death penalty. In the horror-satire novel Lullaby, the main character is given a powerful curse that allows him to cause the death of anyone merely by thinking it.

Commercial Success
Prior to the publication of Lullaby, however, Palahniuk released Choke in 2001, which would be his first ever New York Times bestseller. The book was a hilarious satire about people’s need for a messiah and their secret desire to be a messiah themselves. A film version of the novel, starring Sam Rockwell and Angelica Houston, was released in 2008.

Satire: n, a literary work in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit.

In 2003, Palahniuk released Diary, another horror satire, this time written as though it was a “coma diary”, daily letters written to a person in a coma while you sit at their bedside.
That same year, he published his first non-fiction work, Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk in Portland, Oregon. Tired of boring travelogues listing the typical, cheesy tourist spots in his home town, Palahniuk wrote a travel book of all the cool, weird, and alternative activities and places you can find during a visit to Portland.
The next year, Pahalniuk released Stranger Than Fiction, a collection of non-fiction essays, stories, and interviews he’d written for various magazines and newspapers.

Guts
While doing the book tour for Fugitives and Refugees and Diary, Palahniuk began to do readings of a short story he called “Guts” at public appearances. It was one of a group of stories in “a collection of short stories that are going to be like the darkest, most offensive short stories I can conceive of.” During that book tour, it was reported that over 35 people fainted during the reading.
During his Stranger Than Fiction book tour, readings of “Guts” increased the number of fainters up to 53. To date, more than 70 people have fainted during the reading of the story.
Brilliantly satirical and horrifically disturbing, the collection of short stories was published in 2005 as the novel Haunted.

Palahniuk loves to experiment with the novel form. In Survivor he uses the pages as a countdown to zero. Diary is written like an actual diary. Haunted is a collection of horrific short stories wrapped up in a longer, much more horrific story. In 2007, Palahniuk released Rant, written as an oral biography, where several different people remember the life of a person. In 2009, Palahniuk released Pygmy, written as an epistolary novel, which is a novel where the narrative occurs as a series of letters.
In addition to continually playing with the form of his novels, Palahniuk utilizes several other unique writing styles throughout all of his works. Preferring to “write in verbs rather than adjectives”, his sentences tend to be short, with a somewhat limited vocabulary, depending on the character. Since his novels are narrated in the first person, Palahniuk feels that short sentences and a limited vocabulary is more indicative of how a normal person talks, which help give his stories a better sense of believability.
He also spends an amazingly large portion of his time conducting research for his novels. All manner of strange facts, quotes, recipes, and true story “legends” show up in his novels. Palahniuk uses these factoids to help immerse the reader in his work. By including wildly strange but true facts the reader has no choice but to agree with — because they are true — the reader is more likely to believe in the equally wildly strange but false information that comprises the story’s fiction.
One last tool that consistently shows up in all of Palahniuk’s work is repetition. Certain turns of phrase, words, or images repeat themselves in each of his novels. Palahniuk calls them his “choruses”, but the use of repetition is a clever technique when using the first-person narrative, which is essentially rhetoric. Repetition allows the writer to hammer home an idea, image, or theme, forcing the reader to pay attention. Repetition also helps create a rhythmic quality to the work. Just as the punchline of a good joke depends on the rhythm of how the joke is setup, fiction has a similar rhythm to it.

Chuck Palahniuk’s latest book, Tell All, is expected to hit shelves in May this year. I strongly encourage you to pick up a few other works by this modern master of satire in preparation. I’ll see you in line at the bookstore!

Until then,
Still paddlin’ the old knew…
_-Akatzen-_

Sgt. Angle Reporting for Duty!

Dear Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Voting Members:

Consider this a filmmaker spotlight, as well as an open letter For Your Eyes Only (I’m talking to you, internet!). What follows is the case for Sam Rockwell’s nomination and eventual victory at the Academy Awards ceremony to take place on March 7, 2010, for excellence in filmmaking for the year 2009.

Over the last few weeks, countless awards shows (both live and taped, both televised and non-televised) have featured one of two actors receiving the award for best actor in a motion picture: Jeff Bridges, for his incredibly subtle and heartfelt, down-and-out country singer in “Crazy Heart”; and George Clooney’s introspective, reflective, and Oscar-engineered downsizing expert in “Up in the Air”. Both are very worthy gentleman, as are “The Hurt Locker”’s Jeremy Renner, Colin Firth in “A Single Man”, and (debatable) Morgan Freeman playing Nelson Mandela playing Morgan Freeman from “Invictus”.

And, just as any of these men are worthy, if not downright perfect, for the Oscar this year, one actor stands out above all the rest: Sam Rockwell. This guy.

No, I’m not talking about his stunning voiceover in G-Force. Nor do I mean to imply his Son-of-a-Deniro in “Everybody’s Fine.” I’m talking “Moon”.

I must warn you, here and now, that there may well be SPOILERS ahead, however subtle. If you have not seen MOON already (how dare you, movie fans and filmmakers alike!), then you will have some of the plot and interactions ruined by the below comments. However, I will try to refrain from revealing anything past the halfway mark of the film.

Ready?

OK.

Taking from Roger Ebert’s fine review: “At some point in the future (we can’t nail down the story’s time frame), this station on the far side is manned by a single crew member, Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell). He’s working out the final days of a three-year contract and is close to cracking from loneliness. Talking to loved ones via video link doesn’t satisfy. The station is largely automated; it processes lunar rock to extract Helium-3, used to provide Earth with pollution-free power from nuclear fusion….

”The station is large and well-appointed, has entertainment resources and adequate supplies. Sam communicates frequently with the home office … and so does GERTY [the on board A.I. computer]. Sam doesn’t do any actual mining, but his human hands and brain are needed for repairs, maintenance and inspection. One day he’s outside checking up on something, and his lunar rover smashes up. He’s injured and awakens in the station’s medical facility. And that, I think, is all I need to say.”

Sgt. Angle again, here we go. Sam Rockwell plays Sam Bell as an exhausted, blue collar fella who is waiting for the last days of his contract to come to a close, but what he faces is a harsh wake up call, as he confronts himself in more ways than one and forces us, as film viewers and as human beings, to recognize our own faults and fears, our own desires as overshadowed pipe-dreams, and the very true, very real scenario that, however alone we might feel, we will always have to contend with ourselves.

As filmmaking is concerned, MOON is at an expert level. Made for roughly $5 Million, MOON is the debut film of director Duncan Jones (featured in last week’s Cinegasm), son of David Bowie and director of many small music videos. Jones knows how to shoot for cheap – and to shoot cheap well. He used miniatures and practical effects for the “outdoor” scenes on the moon, and intense planning and execution for the green screen / Sam-and-Sam scenes that showcase Rockwell’s ability to play off himself (aka play off of no one else). The resulting commitment of Jones to his source material and Sam Rockwell to the character, to the project as a whole, are worth the 2 hours, and worth the little Golden Man in March.

Sgt. Angle attended an early screening of MOON, at which Duncan Jones was present post-screening for a Q & A. At the time, he said that Kevin Spacey read the script and liked it, but was scared at the low-budget. Fearing cheesy effects, Spacey waited until the film was shot and edited. He then watched the film, and recorded all of his voiceover scenes in one day. The resulting voice for GERTY is cold, dry, yet somehow more touching than any of Sam’s personas.

Likewise, the film’s look and feel, from the setting to the camera angles, are reminiscent of older Science Fiction films of the 70s and 80s, most notable Alien and 2001: A Space Odyssey: Modern rooms, soft, cushioned white and off-white walls, nothing shiny or spectacular. Just the way a space station should be. (*BONUS* Clint Mansell, of Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain, wrote the music for Moon!)

As part of the case for Sam Rockwell’s nomination for MOON, here’s a brief history of the actor:

In the 90s, Rockwell’s acting career gathered momentum with small roles on television and in movies (“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”, for one). He starred in a few choice indie films, even one with a young (as in TEN) Mischa Barton called “Lawn Dogs.” Many recognize him as the killer “Wild Bill” in Stephen King’s “The Green Mile”, where a particular scene will make Moonpies forever undesirable across middle America.

After a few more showy supporting parts (“Galaxy Quest”, “Charlie’s Angels”), Rockwell broke free critically with his role as The Gong Show host Chuck Barris in George Clooney’s “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind”. He bounced from this exceptional lead role directly into another critically acclaimed film, “Matchstick Men”, directed by Ridley Scott, and held his own against “the Head” known as Nicholas Cage.

In “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”, Sam played brother to the coward himself (Casey Affleck), disturbing, dark, brooding. In the world of critics and cinephiles, Sam Rockwell could be known as the poor man’s Christopher Walken – but take away the poor man, and add “new generation”. Just before MOON, Rockwell starred in the latest daptation of a Chuck Palahniuk novel, CHOKE, playing a sex addict who learns about his mysterious origins while fooling people into believing he’s choking, in order to make them feel better about their own existence.

It should be noted that, according to Jon Favreau, Sam Rockwell was considered for the lead in “IRON MAN” before the studio finally caved and cast Robert Downey, Jr. Rockwell will star in the sequel as Justin Hammer, signing on for the role without reading the script or knowing anything about the character.

Sam Rockwell is a fine character actor with lead capabilities, a true independent hero who has mass appeal, is able to charm audiences with his offbeat style and wit. He’s a new form of Steve Buscemi, with a touch of Christopher Walken’s abilities, and a hint – just a hint – of Robert Downey, Jr.’s all around charm. A thrill to watch, anticipate, and observe, Sam Rockwell is truly the Best Actor of 2009.

Buy MOON here, and get thrown for a circular loop.

Until the next invasion…

Sgt. Angle